Volleyball World Cup, winning comeback over France: Italy in semifinals

Azzurri in the penultimate act of the rainbow review

Italvolley clinches a spot in the semifinals at the ongoing World Championships in Slovenia and Poland. In Ljubljana, the Azzurri withstood the assaults of a strong-willed France, twice coming back from a one-set disadvantage and winning 3-2 in the marathon match in the Slovenian capital: 24-26, 25-21, 23-25, 25-22, 15-12 were the partials in favor of the men coached by Fefè De Giorgi, now one step away from the medal zone.

Match anything but easy at the Stozice Arena: Italy and France were just as equivalent in terms of game construction as they were in terms of errors, and it was the details that made the difference, so much so that the maximum gap at the end of each of the five sets was only four points, in the second fraction.

So the rainbow dream of the reigning European champion national team continues: the minimum goal is to return to the podium, a result that has been missing since the era of the ‘Generation of Phenomena’ capable of graduating world champions in 1990, 1994 and 1998.